B: The Laclede Landing shooting had been a shooter and a wheel man at the least.
C: The two Dagatina hoods were tied solid to the Betters killing. Jackie Nails to at least one other hit.
But for all that, Floyd Streicher of the hooded eyes would not get out of his head. And Jack rubbed his eyes, sighed, and looked down at the phrase he'd been doodling:
DID I LIVE? EVIL I DID.
And in a long expulsion of air he emptied his lungs and read the sentence backward. Realizing as he did so that he had no idea what the fuck he was involved in here. And against his better judgment he took in more air and kept going.
* * *
At precisely 1430 the following Monday all hell broke loose. The CP was screaming on the phone to Victor Springer that the notorious mob lawyer Jake Rozitsky and another individual believed to be an innocent bystander had just been blown up in a gangland bombing downtown. An unprecedented number of units responded, as well as the fire department, and Eichord.
Brass balls to the walls. Media going insane. A circus of mobile units, flashing lights, roiling smoke, sirens, you name it. Two television news choppers almost got into a midair chickie fight trying to jockey for position for best shots of the burning building and the obligatory scene of cops and paramedics and firemen taking Rozitsky and the other man, thought to be a building worker, out to a waiting ambulance in body bags.
Glass came running up to Eichord hollering something at him and it was so noisy he couldn't hear.
"What?"
("MUMBLE MUMBLE") "WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
("SOMETHING") He looked like he was saying metro something. Then he made the universal sign for telephone and Eichord got it and grabbed his two-way, switching it over to the metro freq and taking the call from McTuff. It was one of the things he'd put into play on his own, and the Task Force had reached out just in time. He went over and told Springer, "Lieutenant?"
"What?"
"Come inside the car here." He motioned.
"Huh," Springer screamed.
"In HERE."
"Jesus," Vic Springer said, falling into the car. "Sounds like World War Three goin' on out here. Shit, unfuckin'-real, I can't hear any —"
"We got something, maybe," Eichord told him.
"Yeah?"
"I got a court order for a wiretap. I put it in through McTuff. Roundabout through the DAs office."
"How come you didn't ask me about it, Jack?" He looked so dyspeptic Eichord wondered if he was going to be all right and then he remembered it was just a face. "What tap? Whose phone?" He kept caving in.
"Rozitsky's." He nodded toward the smoking building where firemen were still at work putting the last of the blaze out.
"You tapped Jake Rozitsky? When was this? How come you didn't talk to me?" A basset is all Eichord kept thinking as sad eyes looked at him.
"Just a few days ago. I didn't have a chance, Lieutenant. Always somebody around or I wasn't near a telephone I could trust. Taps go two ways. I got a bad feeling about this Russo case."
"Yeah." Springer sat quietly for a second. "You're saying somebody in the unit is dirty."
"No. Not at all. Just saying — well, you have to consider all the options. The bottom line is. I had his private line tapped when he was killed."
"Umm. And?"
"I think I've got the killer's voice on tape."
Back at Twelfth and dark everybody in Chief Adler's Special Division gathered on the fourth floor as if for a wake or a quiet riot. It took a long, l-o-n-n-n-g forty-five minutes for the agent to show up with the dupe of the original.
"Go ahead," Springer told him, and the special agent threaded the tape into a playback unit.
"Okay. Uh" — he cleared his throat — "this is not going to be real great quality so we'll have to concentrate and make as little noise as possible, please, so everybody can hear this clearly. This is a dupe of the original and we lost a lot of the sound quality dubbing it but we knew you wanted to hear the content as soon as possible. We should have the real thing for you all remastered and quite audible by tomorrow afternoon. Meanwhile this is all we can give you."
"All right. What it is — this is a tap made from an office bug in the law office of the decedent, but this was patched into a mobile phone which transmits through high-frequency radio waves. It's a cellular unit, like your two-ways, or paging services, things like that, but this is not off the open tap that addresses the device by harmonics, this —"
"Uh, excuse me," Eichord interrupted. "Sorry but we need to hear this, so if you will hold off on the technical stuff for later." Somebody said showtime as the agent nodded and hit Play. For five minutes all they heard was a lot of crap about the Dolphins game, and the line on the game, and the point spread. Then there was a new conversation.
Eichord listened to the somewhat poor-quality tape as the lawyer's secretary spoke with someone else's secretary, and there was a pause while the other party came on the line. One of the cops in the room said, "This is James Measure he's talkin' to."
"Yeah," a gruff voice barked.
"Mr. Measure, please stay on the line for Mr. Rozitsky."
"Yeah, awright."
"Jim-baby," a rich voice enthused.
"Jake. What's up?"
"How are ya, booby?"
"I'm awright. Not too bad."
"Listen, Jim ... I gotta talk to ya about a couple of things later, ya know?"
"Yeah."
"I had that meeting with our friend over there, and it's just what I told you. He's holding us up, but he's gonna' swing with it, so that's all there is to it we just gotta push his buttons."
"He's holding us up awright, the cocksuck."
"Yeah. That's going to have to be taken care of. We gonna get banged for some sweetener, ya' know?"
"Oh, I figured that out awready."
"He's gonna have to have some sweetener but he'll pop for us I promise ya, no problem at all. We gotta waltz him around a little first, and then he's gonna waltz us around a little, and then we're all gonna dance a little more, and finally we gonna get a bottom line, and that's the way it'll work. I mean, we'll get there it's just gonna take a dance or two."
"I don't give a fuck he gotta go with me on this thing, that's all there is to it."
"I talked to him. Look, Jim, he knows that's your country here and he's gotta go through you to do this thing, and some dues get paid both ways, he's aware of this."
"Fuckin' right it's our country here, the mother-fucker."
"So it's just getting banged for a little sweetener and dance a couple dances with the sonofabitch and that's that, emmis, but it's like a bullshit thing with him, ya know? He's gotta put you through the numbers, see, so it looks like it's all kosher, and Mr. Big Businessman, but at the end he's got his hand out. He just don't ask for the sweetener like a man, he gotta waltz us around all over the place first. But that's what you got me for. I'll dance with the cock-suck for a while and then we'll do something."
"So what's he gonna nail us on it?"
"I figure another ten dollars on it."
"Je-sus CHRIST! Whattya' fuckin' MEAN ten shit. That sonofabitch thinks we're made outta fuckin' money, fer Chrissakes? Fuck him."
"So we'll get banged for a little sweetener and that's the name of that tune. But you know, what pisses me off he can't be a man and just come out wit' it he's gotta' waltz around all over the place first and act like Honest John, see, and the slimy sonofabitch is puttin' his hand down in your pocket and telling you this and that and the other thing like he can't do this and he can't do that."
"This is bullshit. Ten large. Christ, the fuck, gonna bang me for another ten large I better see something happen pretty fuckin' fast is all I can tell ya. I ain't payin' ten dollars more for a hand job."